There are certain high-concept new music albums that sink under the weight of their conceits, but this is not one of them. I found A/rhythmia to be consistently smart, provocative, and beautifully performed.

Can I play pedant for one moment, though, and object to the title? In the notes, its definition is given as “want of rhythm or regularity, specifically of the pulse.” Well, that is not what we have here. Instead, this is music that is full of pulses, often overlaid on one another, constantly changing, never predictable. It’s totally “rhythmic,” but in an extended sense. Maybe “counter/rhythmia” could have been a better title, but I know, it wouldn’t be as catchy.

Okay, that may seem picky, but in fact it goes to the heart of this release. This is a very savvy disc, in that it chooses to combine supposedly incompatible musics, that all explore experimental rhythmic realms, into a seamless flow. At its core are a series of very “serious” pieces by major composers of several generations, all of whom create their distinctive profile through the manipulation and distortion of rhythm. So we have two amazing arrangements of Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano pieces, Harrison Birtwistle’s Carmen arcadiae mechanicae perpetuum, the third movement from Gyôrgy Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto, and Bang On A Can founder Michael Gordon’s visceral Yo Shakespeare, a landmark postminimalist/totalist work. All these pieces, from various points in a post-1950 canon, are subtle, yet crazy. They push limits from every angle, and should be a revelation to the techno crowd Alarm Will Sound (AWS) is probably trying to reach with this release.

Benedict Mason (b. 1956) is a British composer whom I’d encountered a while back on a Bridge release (9045), but had fallen off my radar. His 90-second works on this release are fantastic in several senses of the word: imaginative, loopy, over-the-top. They are like a compendium of postmodernism crossed with cartoon aesthetics, compressed into Webernian time space. The Ciconia and Josquin are late ars nova and High Renaissance works that indulge in strict process, and they are made current by great arrangements by AWS members Gavin Chuck and Peyton MacDonald, respectively (the latter adds several polyrhythmic layers to the source, but in a way that to my ear makes the impact of the piece just that more intense).

Finally, there are two examples of what AWS’s director Alan Pierson’s notes call “I.D.M.” (Intelligent Dance Music). And that it is. These are sharp pieces, though one more than the other. Mochipet (aka David Wong) presents a crazy evocation of Balkan music, enhanced by a stunning arrangement by Stefan Freund. Autechre (aka Rob Brown and Sean Booth) offers a work that is less compelling for me; it reminds me of AWS’s release on Cantaloupe 21028 of their arrangements of Aphex Twin’s techno pieces (which still fall short for me, despite their astonishing ingenuity). In both cases, the source music isn’t best served, as a major part of its impact is its otherworldly sound as well as its structure. When you transfer the music to the acoustic medium, I fear its structure starts to compare poorly to the music of those such as the “classical” composers on this release. It’s the one moment where it seems the performers are pandering a little. But it’s a miniscule portion of the program, and it makes an ideological point, at least, with which I’m in sympathy.

Overall, this is a release to which I’ll return, with pleasure. Also a likely Want List item for 2010.